Posted Sep 8, 08 09:34 AM
Who Writes This Stuff?!
Four of the most endearing words I love to hear. Not to discount --
"But you seem like such a nice guy..."
or --
"Where do you come up with this?"
One phone call three years ago from my friend Ralph -- who moved back to Philadelphia to start Zenescope, a graphic novel company with his friend Joe -- and now it's going-on eighteen credits later. Mike Kalvoda, graphic novelist.
And I hadn't picked up a comic book -- excuse me, graphic novel/trade paperback -- since I located that TOMB OF DRACULA I'd been uncharacteristically obsessing over since I was eleven. There were small collections of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and MARVEL TALES, too. And through it all, I still retained that imminent curiosity about DR. STRANGE...
But Ralph, a stand up guy and long-suffering Eagles fan, always liked my spec horror scripts. He set up a conference call with me and Joe, they drew up a contract with my manager John, and a proverbial leap of faith was taken. Then I got the outline from New Line Cinema for FINAL DESTINATION: SPRING BREAK, and I panicked. It was one -- count it -- paragraph long. I'd never written in this format before and here they wanted me to spin a simple pitch into five 22-pages issues. A nice tie-in to FINAL DESTINATION 3. But in front of me was a blank computer screen.
Did I say I panicked?
"Take a deep breath," Ralph emailed.
Okay.
And I changed my thinking. Work within the conventions, but think carte blanc. Write the story (it helped to view the series, structurally, as if it were a film) as the kind of story I'd want to read. And see. Steer away from clichés. Keep it smart. Go for a gutsy ending. Grow the series.
And think style.
I'd never seen them used before, but I advocated "death quotes" -- verses and phrases from philosophy and literature that underscored the mood of a panel or page. As the action was set against a youth getaway to Cancun, I suggested interweaving Mayan culture. There was something about coming into the form without too much exposure: a person doesn't know the limits.
After the first issue was sent, I was tense. Ralph and Joe laughed. "Dude, you're turning in literature. Go to a comic store and check out the competition." I was shocked. Some of the "competition" had this one-late-night-and-a-six-pack feel. Sure, I was writing a horror comic book, but -- absolutely -- I was going to write the very best horror comic book I could. Effort is the subtext between the lines.
So I researched. My brother, Charlie, a pilot, was the source for the phenomenon of microbursts (issue #5). And jetways (issue #3). I read up on pool covers on tracks (#4), glass bottom boats (#3), mercury poisoning (#2), fireworks (#4). I poured through hundreds of quotations espousing mortality. And I knew I was on to something with the whipped cream and cherry of it all: the books' death scenes. Seemingly genteel friends and relatives started suggested diabolical ways for characters to get it. "Maybe he could..." "Maybe someone might..."
Ha! I knew it wasn't just me. Although Ralph would read of a creative death scene I'd conceive. I'd giggle. And he'd intone, "You sick bastard."
Ralph and Joe paid the compliment that if New Line were to mine for the next installment of the hit franchise, they ought to just adapt Spring Break into FD#4. A really sweet fan in Minneapolis who somehow got my contact info echoed the sentiment.
FINAL DESTINATION: SPRING BREAK will always be "that first one" of mine in this form, but it's served me as well as I, hopefully, have served New Line and Zenescope. There's nothing quite like a meeting with a film exec where he speculates on and quotes an Emily Dickinson verse you had crazily pushed to include in a comic book panel…
“Was it,” the exec anticipated. “’Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me –‘“
“’The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality,” I intoned, finishing the verse for him.
We stared, smiling – maybe for ten seconds. That's the sort of moment that defines the foundation of being entrusted with a screenplay deal.
Know the feeling.
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 09:34 AM